The Beths Share Single & Video 'Mother, Pray For Me'

Aotearoa's bountifully talented The Beths lift our spirits this grey wintery hump-day with 'Mother, Pray For Me', a moving third single from the indie-rock megastars' forthcoming new record Straight Line Was A Lie via ANTI. The emotionally frank ballad puts the spotlight on singer / guitarist Elizabeth Stokes, exploring her relationship with her own mother in song — pondering family ties, expectation and faith, with elegant instrumental backing.

Sure to be a live show centrepiece, The Beths reunited with filmmaking chums Sports Team to make the video for 'Mother, Pray For Me', in which Stokes sails solo at twilight through chilly looking waters. Playing the phenomenally stacked Infinity Sessions at Tāmaki Makaurau's Roundhead Studios next month (that event is unsurprisingly sold out already), The Beths' recent single 'No Joy' was hailed by The Guardian as a "Song of the Summer 2025", ahead of the group's mammoth-scale northern hemisphere tour starting in November. Ingenious producers of both our Trash Recital and Live Music Bar series, Sports Team are premiering their feature film debut, cannibal horror-comedy The Weed Eaters at The Civic this Saturday 2nd August as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival (also fast selling out). See you there...

"I cried the whole time writing it. It's not really about my mother, it's about me — what I hope our relationship is, what I think it is, what it maybe actually is, and what I can or can't expect out of it.

My mother is a first gen Indonesian immigrant, and very Catholic. I was born in Jakarta and we moved to Auckland when I was four. I think this song is me trying to understand my relationship with my mum, and her relationship to her faith and with her own mother. It was hard to write. We came up with a full band arrangement for the song, but in the end it seemed to feel the clearest with just me and the guitar. And a bit of organ."

'Straight Line Was A Lie' releases via ANTI on Friday 29th August — preorder HERE.